


exhumed.

by worry



Series: honeybees [1]
Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Ghosts, M/M, Multi, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 17:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: The rain falls. The Doctor crawls his way out of the ground like he is searching for love, like he has been reborn - he has been reborn, into the arms of the fantasy now. Turlough stands behind his headstone -JOHN DOE???--1983and waits.





	exhumed.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt #1: azalea; fragile passion

They are both dead. The Doctor still cannot touch him.

 

He watches Turlough from the hard end of the bed, his bright, pallucid body the only light emitting in the coldness of the bedroom. The Doctor still cannot touch him.

 

_Looking back on it:_

 

 _They meet in the same graveyard that the Doctor is buried in._ One would think that, after all of this time, after centuries and centuries, they would have found a way to be together - but that isn’t the case, the world will end with them in each other’s arms with no feeling, no brush of skin, no ghost of love. _The rain falls. The Doctor crawls his way out of the ground like he is searching for love, like he has been reborn - he has been reborn, into the arms of the fantasy now. Turlough stands behind his headstone -_

 

_JOHN DOE_

 

_???--1983_

 

_and waits._

 

_He is almost unrecognizable as humanoid; the dirt is caked on him, up his arms, on his hair, clinging to his entire body._

 

_That is what he is now: a body. Turlough can feel the hunger_

 

 _pulsing off of it, imagines that the Doctor’s skin is cold and_ The Doctor still cannot touch him _and Turlough wants to touch it, run his fingers over the air around him. Turlough wants to touch the Doctor’s skin, would offer his own blood if he were human, if he was something other than dead. He wants to be alive. He wants to save this one--_ he has seen so many-- _and he wants to be loved, loved, this is the afterlife and it is not supposed to be_

 

_this_

 

_lonely._

 

_The Doctor hisses. He can sense Turlough behind him and hisses; in moments he has Turlough cornered, would have his teeth inside of Turlough---his all---his everything---inside of Turlough like Turlough craves, but the Doctor - the Doctor - the Doctor cannot touch him._

 

He approaches Turlough. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. They’ll have me and they’ll have Adric. We’re enough.”

 

“What can Adric do? He’s like me, remember? He can’t touch anything.”

“Exactly. He’s like you; you can’t touch anything either. You need to rest.”

 

“I don’t want to be alone,” Turlough admits suddenly. The Doctor reaches out on instinct, wants to stroke his face; you’d think he would’ve learned by now, but love never learns, love never transforms, love is a biting universal thing.

 

“Very well,” the Doctor sighs. “You can come, then. But - try not to get in any arguments this time.”

 

“I’ll try.”

 

_“Can’t you tell that I’m dead?”_

 

_The Doctor growls in response. He claws forward at Turlough_

 

_‘s body._

 

_“I know you’re hungry,” Turlough whispers, stepping forward right!!! up!!! into the Doctor’s space, oh, “I can get you what you need.”_

 

 _The Doctor looks interested now; his teeth poke out from his mouth,_ **_I want you._ **

 

* * *

 

“It’s almost time,” Adric notes, watches Tegan grip the arms of her chair so hard that her hands turn pale, pale white - if the opposite of life had a color, it would be this, this symbol of sickness-and-waiting, this call of dread. Nyssa, from next to Tegan, looks paler.

 

“Yes, Adric,” Tegan sighs, “we know.”

 

“The Doctor isn’t here yet.”

 

“Yes, Adric,” repeats Nyssa, “we know.”

 

“Do you think he’s okay? He was supposed to be here hours ago.”

 

“I don’t think time exists for him,” Tegan says, and grips harder; if they are not restrained before they turn, they will—

 

* * *

 

“When were Tegan and Nyssa turned?” Turlough asks, stretching out, resting his feet on the dashboard. The Doctor is a terrible driver, but - it’s not like it would matter if they got in a crash. Two dead people in a car, two dead people in love, two dead people who cannot touch. _He is beautiful, and Turlough feels like_ —

 

Well.

 

The Doctor frowns. “I’m not actually sure… they never told me exactly when. I have a feeling it’s a bit of a sore subject.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“But—”

 

“But?”

 

He looks hesitant. “I know they turned each other.”

 

* * *

 

 _He makes Turlough want to leave the cemetery. Turlough has not left the cemetery since his death; he doesn’t know where he’d go. He has no one to visit. Dead people are supposed to have some attachment to the living world; that is what the ghost stories say, that ghosts are stuck between worlds on purpose, because they have not learned a life lesson, because they have unfinished business, because they were taken too early and were supposed to live longer_ **_even fate is fallible_ ** —

 

_but Turlough took his own life._

 

_What unfinished business could there possibly be?_

 

_He leads the Doctor to the butcher’s, and the Doctor breaks the door right off of its hinges, turns on the lights in Turlough’s mind as he does so. Vampires are strong by nature, but the Doctor is somehow stronger._

 

 _Most of the blood misses his mouth, but the Doctor licks it right back up_ — _the blood stains his skin and the Doctor runs his tongue over his fingers, hands, arms, body, everything that Turlough wants to_

 

_touch and OH_

 

_THIS IS_

 

_this is_

 

_this_

 

_is_

 

_bad because now Turlough wants to touch this strange, newly-emerged vampire and he is: dead. They are both dead. You’d think that two dead people would be able to touch, that the barrier would dissipate for them. For the dead. To be satiated. To be satisfied with touch._

 

_That is not the case. Nothing is ever simple and the world has big, big teeth. The story: all the better to eat you with, my dear, my love, the world’s teeth big and unforgiving and the forgiveness without teeth but with claws and nothing is ever_

 

_ever_

 

_ever_

 

_simple or good and why_

 

_WHY_

 

_can’t Turlough just be dead? Why is he still here? Why can’t he shed this afterlife like skin and get what he truly deserves: peace? Why can’t he just have that?_

 

_The Doctor finishes drinking. He turns to Turlough and asks the torn-apart question: “Who are you?”_

 

* * *

 

Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric live in a big house on the quiet countryside. The interior is beautiful, rich purples and reds, fine antiques, piles and piles of ancient books. In the basement: solid chains. It’s fitting for two werewolves and a ghost, certainly.

 

Turlough has only been here a few times, and every time Turlough visits, Tegan makes the same comment: “Oh,” she says. “I see you brought Turlough.”

 

“Yes,” the Doctor replies, leading Tegan and Nyssa down the winding, winding staircase into the darkness of the basement. “I did.”

 

Tegan stares over at him and Nyssa takes her hand, tries her best comfort. “That’s fine,” Nyssa adds for her. “We don’t mind. We’ll be tied up, anyway.”

 

Turlough laughs at this. Tegan and Nyssa are perfect examples of what it’s like to be just in the grasp of humanity---only on full moons do they turn, while the Doctor is stuck as a monster and Turlough and Adric count as neither. They are nice people, of course. They are - hospitable, he supposes, giving him the barebones of friendship. It’s enough, it really is.

 

Adric is the only one who truly understands but Adric doesn’t talk to him much. Turlough is the Doctor’s -- and that is all that Turlough is.

 

[He doesn’t blame them for their wariness. He deserves it, cannot be truly pinned down. He has done so many bad things---]

 

[---and the Doctor still loves him.]

 

[And the Doctor still cannot touch him.]

 

* * *

 

The Doctor chains them down, down, down to the floor and against the wall. Turlough watches Tegan’s eyes flash yellow, and: they leave, Turlough floating back up the steps, Turlough’s hand floating over the Doctor’s, absent and misshapen.

 

“We should stay,” the Doctor says, sudden. “Until morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please kudos+comment if you enjoyed! I might finish this later?


End file.
